The California Department of Fish and Game wardens will start
enforcing the new rules Jan. 1, said Jordan Traverso, spokeswoman
for the department.

"It's at the warden's discretion to take whatever action they
deem appropriate for the situation," she said. "It could include
warning or education, but could also include citation or
arrest."

Protecting key waters for spawning and feeding is necessary to
restore fish populations that have collapsed in recent decades,
officials have said.

For instance, a recent study by researchers with the Scripps
Institution for Oceanography found that populations of barred sand
bass and kelp bass declined by 90 percent since 1980, because of
water temperature changes and overfishing.

Expanded preserves at Swami's, off Encinitas and at La Jolla
will create refuges for marine life by limiting anglers to
hook-and-line fishing or spearfishing for certain species, or by
banning fishing entirely within their borders.

"There were existing marine protected areas by La Jolla and at
Swami's," said Stefanie Sekich-Quinn, California policy manager for
the coastal protection organization Surfrider, which has held
educational forums to inform the public about the changes. "Those
have been expanded, so they'll be larger and protecting more
habitat, with better benefits in the end."

San Elijo and Batiquitos lagoons, which previously allowed
fishing, will now prohibit it, while the newly restored San
Dieguito Lagoon will allow fishing only from shore or from the
Grand Avenue bridge.

The California Fish and Game Commission adopted the system of
marine protected areas proposed by a 64-person panel of
stakeholders last year. The approval capped more than a decade of
debate and discussion on the proposed restrictions.

"When you look at the maps throughout Southern California, San
Diego is one of the best examples of the tradeoffs and compromises
that took place during the process" of creating the protected
areas, Sekich-Quinn said.

The new rules became tangled in regulatory and legal setbacks,
however, which delayed their effective date from October to
January.

Last fall, the Office of Administrative Law rejected the plan
creating the areas, requiring the commission to correct errors in
the plan, including the failure to provide adequate public notice,
submit documents and to explain some decisions.

At the same time, a coalition of sportfishing groups that
unsuccessfully challenged similar marine preserves in Northern
California said it would fight the Southern California network once
it takes effect.

Fishing groups have argued that the protected areas would place
a stranglehold on recreational fishing and that the plans weren't
sufficiently open to public input.

In the meantime, however, the Department of Fish and Game
Commission updated the South Coast regulations, leaving the new
protected areas ready to open Jan. 1.